The pain started to cease and his body started warming up; Adam slowly opened his eyes. The pain felt like it lasted for hours when it really lasted for ten minutes. He felt his energy returning as he got up, but as he was standing up, he noticed that his claws were gone. Adam looked behind him; his tail was gone as well. He grabbed the magic mirror; he saw that he was human again. He knew that even though he was a human, that beast was still inside him.

"It's still strange seeing you without fur." Adam heard Belle's voice. He turned around, Belle was sitting up on the bed. She was also smiling.

"Did I wake you?" he asked.

"No, I just woke up. " Belle answered, "Are you okay? After fighting with Fiona?"

"I'm fine." Adam said as he sat down on the edge of the bed, "There's something I need to tell you."

"If it's that serious," she said, "then tell me." Adam...was a little worried about telling Belle about Lady Temps and what she said about their mothers, but Belle did deserve to know.

"Well, after you passed out, Fiona tried one mais time to get rid of us." Adam explained, "Your aunt got into it and used her magic to fight her, but then, someone got into the middle of it. Her name was Lady Temps, she banished Fiona to...a place called 'The Pit of Darkness and Fire'."

"I heard that name before," Belle said, "I found my mother's diary talking about a 'Lady Temps'."

"Well," he said, "it turns out that Lady Temps is the sorceress of time and...the empress of the world of magic. After Fiona was banished, Celia said that you...and your cousin were now free of the spell that was on you." Belle smiled and looked upwards, Adam could see that Belle was so happy that she was free.

"What happened to Tintement?" Belle asked.

"I asked Tintement if she would like to live here with you." Adam explained, "But she said that she wanted to try and live on her own. If she can't, she said she'll come back here."

"I should've known that Tintement would do that." She said, "Can you believe that you met someone who has a big responsibility just like you."

"My responsibility isn't as big as Lady Temps." Adam said with a chuckle. "Anyway, she came to thank us for saving all those sorcerers and sorceresses.*sigh* I can't believe that magic beings like them existed!"

"We better believe it," Belle said, "our mothers were once those magic beings!"

"Speaking of that," he said nervously, "I found out something else about our mothers."

"What else is there?" she asked, Adam took a deep breath before answering.

"It turns out that...that...that after we buried our mothers," Adam was beginning to stall the point, "Lady Temps not only visited their graves, turns out that she also brought them back from the dead." The room was dead silent, Belle looked like she was in her own little world. "Belle?"

"You're playing a trick on me, aren't you?" Belle asked.

"I'm just telling you what Lady Temps told me." Adam explained, "I haven't seen the proof, but I didn't want to push her."

"True," she said, "who knows what Lady Temps could do to people?" Adam almost winced at that remark, if Rouge could transform him into a beast, Lady Temps could do so much worse. Belle could see that Adam was in deep thought, so she decided to let him be in his thoughts.

"Belle?" Adam said, Belle was a little startled because she wasn't expecting Adam to get out of his thoughts that fast.

"Yes, Adam?" she answered. Belle could tell that Adam wanted to tell her something, but he seemed scared about something.

"I'm not sure that I can ask you now." he said.

"Try." Belle said, she could see that Adam was nervous and a little afraid as he put his head down. He reached into one of his pockets on his white pants and pulled out a little white box.

"I've...been wanting to ask you this ever since you set everyone free from the spell." Adam said with a nervous voice, "You have...managed to do the impossible...falling in amor with a beast." Adam was about to continue, but Belle interrupted him.

"It wasn't the beast that I fell in amor with." Belle said, she raised her hand and laid it on Adam's chest. "It was was the coração within the beast that I fell in amor with." Adam just closed his eyes and held Belle's hand, the one that was on his heart. He wanted to embrace the moment, but Belle wanted to know what he wanted to ask her. She gently pulled her hand out of his and held his face with both hands. Adam opened his eyes and looked at Belle, he could see the curiosity in her eyes. He brought out the little white box and opened the lid, there was a silver ring with a diamond in the shape of a rose. That's when it hit her; Adam was trying to propose to her. She looked at the ring and then at Adam. Before he could ask her the big question, Belle grabbed his neck colarinho, colar and kissed him. She wouldn't let go of him despite that he was trying to get her to. The problem was that Adam was running out of air, he didn't want to break the kiss, but he never got a big enough breath for him to kiss Belle for this long. Between the little struggle Adam was having with Belle still latched onto him, they reached the other end of the (king-sized) bed. It take long (or much) when he fell backwards onto the floor with Belle and the covers falling on topo, início of them.

Adam and Belle tried to find their way out of the enrolados blankets. Adam got out first, he could not believe the kiss he endured. He continued to feel the ruffling of the blankets, Belle was still trying to find her way out. Adam just grabbed one of the blankets and pulled, just enough to pull out a enrolados corner. It was enough where Belle pushed her left arm out, Adam grabbed her hand and pulled out her head and other arm. He quickly released it because he wanted to prepare himself if Belle was going to kiss him again. But Belle couldn't help herself, she was just really excited.

"I know you weren't prepared for that." Belle said, Adam looked at her.

"I didn't expect you to kiss me like that." Adam said, "I could never expect you to do a kiss like that!"

"Well, you couldn't blame me," she replied, "why didn't you ask me sooner?" Adam sighed and felt like he was going to give her a bad reason.

"I wanted to ask you the dia after you set me free from the spell," he explained, "but you were sick and...upset about the possibility of me needing to marry a princess. I wanted you to heal from your illness...and from that sore spot in your heart. I also wanted to ask you during that picnic we had, but I brought your cousin up and I forgot about it. One thing led to another, so to speak."

"I understand, Adam." she said, "I know you were trying hard to ask me, but never got the chance, but you do have an answer. I will marry you." Belle smiled as she said that, Adam saw that look in her eyes. "Don't worry, Adam, I'm not going to kiss you like that for quite some time. I'll make sure that you know that it's coming." He was immediately relieved, he didn't want another unexpected kiss. "But there is something we have to think and discuss about." she added.

"What's that?" Adam asked.

"What if what Lady Temps told you was true?" Belle said, "What if she did bring our mothers back from the dead? Do we want them back to us?"

"What do you think, Belle?" he asked, Belle wasn't expecting Adam to flip the pergunta back to her.

"Well...just like anyone who loses a family member...all I ever wanted was to see my mother one mais time." Belle said, "Now that we both have that chance, I think...we, or I, would want her back. I don't know about you wanting to see your mother again, but I do want to see mine again. Besides...I would think that she would want to see her only child to get married." After hearing what Belle had to say about her mother, Veronica, maybe Adam could accept having his mother, Lydia, back into his life.

"Like you, Belle," Adam started, "I also had a strong relationship with my mother, but she was mais than my mother. She was the only one that I trusted and I loved...and who loved me back."

"What about your father?" Belle asked, Adam winched at the mention of his father. Belle saw him winched when she mentioned his father, that alone gave her enough to know that Adam and his father didn't get along.

"Belle," Adam said, "since you and I are going to get married, I think you should know about my parents...and how I became the Beast." Belle couldn't believe what Adam was telling her, she knew that Adam would tell her about that when he felt comfortable about talking about it.

"Adam, don't force yourself to go through this." She said, "You don't have to tell me now."

"I think I should." He said, "It's been put off for too long."

"All right," Belle said, "Just...don't push yourself over the edge. If you don't think you can talk about it, then don't. I do understand it was painful for you."

"My father was the complete opposite of yours." Adam said, "Unlike your father, my father was horrid, controlling and abusive." A tear slid down his cheek as he remembered his parents. "He gave no compassion, not even to my mother...nor me. He didn't amor us, there were multiple times that mother's life was in danger, but she did it to protect me." Adam paused, he started to know mais how much his mother was willing to protect him...just like how much he was willing to protect Belle.

"Your mother was doing her job." Belle softly said, "It's a mother's job to protect their child from everything that's a threat...even if it means protecting them from their child's father."

"One day, I peeked into my mother's room." Adam continued, "My father was in an intoxicated rage and he was putting out on my mother, he pulled out his hunting faca and...held it against her throat. I couldn't let my father kill my mother, I ran into the room and bit onto his leg, I wanted him to take his attention off my mother and onto me. Biting him did the trick, but he held me against the wall, broke a piece of the cama and was beating me with it. seguinte thing I heard was a bang and there was a shot of pain in my right arm." Belle saw where Adam held his arm, it was in the exact place where the lobo bit him when he saved her. "There was a blank look on father's face and he stopped beating me, I saw something red coming out of his mouth. That's when he dropped me and fell onto the floor. There was nothing that terrified me during that time than seeing my father's dead body. I looked over at mother, she was shaking and holding a pistol. When she looked over at me, she dropped the pistol and kept me from seeing father's bleeding body." Adam was his own mind, he was starting to see his father's bleeding body in his mind.

"Adam?" Belle spoke up, Adam quickly looked at her. Belle could see how much fear that was in his eyes and he was remembering that scary horrible moment. "You don't have to continue, if you don't want to." Adam knew that Belle was being serious, but he had to face his past in order to get into the future.

"I need to face the past," Adam said, "once I get through the past, I hope that I can let it go." Belle saw in his deep blue eyes that he wasn't holding onto his past; the past was holding onto him. She sensed that Adam wanted the past to let go.

"Okay, continue." She softly said, Adam nodded his head and continued his story.

"After father was killed, the servants buried him under a village. Everyone believed that he didn't deserve a proper royal grave. Despite that no one had to fear my father again, my mother was deeply upset because when she shot my father, she also shot me. The pain I felt in my right arm was the bullet going through my arm. It hit my father first, then my arm and lodged it into the wall. Mother was mais upset about the bullet hitting me than father releasing his rage on me. Since she was my mother, I tried to understand what she was feeling, but I couldn't. I think maybe I was too young to understand." Belle couldn't believe the great lengths Adam's mother went through in order to protect him, but what mother wouldn't protect their child? Belle continued to listen Adam's story; his mother, who was originally a peasant like Belle, became a Valente strong woman to take on the responsibility of a kingdom and to make sure Adam came first. But when she heard about how his mother went into her burning mansion to save Adam and other family members and how badly burned she was, she started to cry herself.

"Nothing could express the pain she went through," Adam explained, "I stayed with her. Mother wanted me to continue my studies, I did...but I did it in her room so that she could see that I was doing them and so that I didn't have to leave her. Mother was also trying to teach me to read with my studies. Before she passed, she gave me this." Adam held out the topaz coração shaped locket that he made as a fastener, Belle could imagine a precious item around the neck of royalty. When she looked back at Adam, tears were sliding off his face and falling onto the fallen sheets. "When...when she...she passed away, she did it in front of me. Nothing could express the pain I went through that day. I lost interest in everything, I couldn't learn anything. After Mother was gone, I couldn't go on, I didn't think anyone in this world cared about me. I closed off my heart, I didn't want it to be touched. If it was, I was afraid of losing that person. Because I didn't allow my coração to be touched, I became amargo, amarga towards people. I was cold, depressed, selfish and didn't care about anyone." Belle tried to understand the broken coração that was once in Adam, she remembered when the Beast let her go to help her father; she remembered how much pain he was going through when he let her go.
"On natal on my eleventh year, I demanded presents from my staff. They tried to impress me, but...I closed my coração off for two years and...I didn't want to open it. Just then, there was a knock at the door, I wasn't too happy when I saw a beggar woman at the door. She begged for a night of shelter in exchange of a single rose. I refused her gift and slammed the door in her face. I was about to turn back until the front doors slammed open and a bright light flooded the front parlor. I turned around to see a woman floating in front of me."

"*sigh* It was the enchantress, wasn't it?" Belle asked.

"Yes, it was was her." Adam answered, "She told me that I had a cold coração and had no amor in my heart. So she turned me into the Beast, the servants into objects and the castelo dark and gloomy. She also said that the only way I could break the spell was to fall in amor and earn that person's amor in return before the last petal fell on the rose, on my twenty-first year." When Belle heard that, she remembered when she first entered the West Wing, when she first saw the encantada rose.

"It explains why you angry with me for almost touching it." Belle said.

"There wasn't any excuse for me scaring you like that," Adam softly said, "but I didn't want my little raio, ray of hope to be destroyed."

"I understand," Belle said, "I...am sorry that you suffered for so long." Belle could see mais tears falling off Adam's face and his eyes were closed. She gently laid her hands on his face and turned him back at her, that's when his eyes, his deep blue eyes, opened again. "In my own thoughts, I think your mother would be proud of the man you became now." Adam didn't have anything to say, he just leaned his forehead against Belle's and closed his eyes, she responded back por leaning back and she closed her eyes as well.

Suddenly, there was a blue glow between them. It was bright enough for them to open their eyes, they saw it was coming from the sapphire blue locket around Belle's neck. She removed it and they both stared at the locket, just then, it shattered! The locket shattered and became dust, the only things that remain were the little portraits inside.

"Why did that happen?" Belle asked.

"I don't know." Adam replied, but then, there was another glow. This glow was yellow and was coming from the topaz heart-shaped locket. Just like the sapphire locket, the topaz locket shattered and turned into dust. There was only one thing that remained...and that was one little heart-shaped portrait. Adam picked it up and looked at it. "I didn't know this was in it." Adam said as he stared at the little portrait.

"What is it, Adam?" Belle asked, Adam looked at her and then turned the portrait for Belle to look at.

"Is that her?" Belle asked.

"Yes, that's her...with...me in her lap." Adam answered, he did not know that his mother put that in there. His mother had her harsh-red hair flowing in the wind. She was wearing a deep forest green vestido and gloves. Adam was six years old in the portrait and was wearing a purple suit.

"You know," Belle said, "I see some similarity between you and your mother." Suddenly, Belle's face dropped.

"What is it?" Adam asked.

"Do you smell that?" she asked, Adam sniffed the air.

"I don't smell anything." he said.

"I do," Belle said as she sniffed the air again, "and I know exactly what it is. Come on."